Planning institute seeks Bill changes

The Irish Planning Institute (IPI), which represents professional planners, has warned that key principles of Ireland's planning system could be undermined by the Strategic Infrastructure Bill, now before the Oireachtas.

In a detailed submission to the Department of the Environment and to Opposition party spokespeople on the environment, the institute is seeking a number of changes in the legislation during the committee stage of the Bill, which started this week.

The IPI maintains that the proposed role of An Bord Pleanála as a "one-stop shop" for major infrastructure projects should only apply in cases where a project has been identified in a plan that has already been the subject of public consultation.

"This can best be achieved if the proposed strategic infrastructure process is limited to those projects that have been first identified in national or regional plans, and the locations of which are publicly known and agreed in advance," it said.

The institute complained that the absence of rights of appeal on substantive planning issues, with recourse to the courts only on points of law, "strikes at the principles of fairness and transparency that underpin our planning system".

There would also be a threat to the public perception of An Bord Pleanála's impartiality if it is required to facilitate consultation with the proposer of a project, without a similar and equal right of consultation by opponents, such as local residents.

The IPI warned that the strategic infrastructure process might be used as a "back door" for controversial private-sector projects - such as waste incinerators - that were "primarily profit-driven and not necessarily genuinely in the public interest".

It also complained that there was no definition in the Bill of the "national interest" and that it was left up to the Minister to set the criteria by which environmental groups would be eligible to take part in the process, including their access to the courts.

IPI president Henk van der Kamp said the aim of the amendments it had proposed was to make the process fairer for all sides and "mitigate some of the significant problems" with the legislation as presented.